Our goal is to provide relevant information for AEC and facilities management professionals, including posts on building information modeling, facilities management, Autodesk building solutions such as AutoCAD Architecture and Revit, and ARCHIBUS software.

AutoCAD MEP

08/04/2014

This week our own Jordan Mussett explains using the Project Base Point in Revit to export AutoCAD background drawings.

Many Revit users get themselves in hot water when it comes to providing consultants and sub consultants with AutoCAD Backgrounds. In the images below, the Project Base Point does represent the 0,0 point in AutoCAD.

At its simplest, Revit has a point that it doesn't tell you about. There is the Project Base Point, the Survey Point, and what I like to call the original origin. The original origin reveals itself in the following way. When the Project Base point is unclipped and moved, the 0,0 point in AutoCAD is now where the Project Base Point was. Another way to look at is, if the Project Base Point is unclipped and moved, the 0,0 point in the AutoCAD export is now different than where the Project Base Point is in Revit. This is going to be something that more likely than not, the consultants are going to point out to you by asking, why is 0,0 over here? In the pictures below, the Project Base Point was unclipped and moved. In AutoCAD, the 0,0 point stayed where it was.

So what is the safe practice? At the outset of a project, turn the Project Base Point on and use this point as your intersection of two grids preferably at the corner of the building and go from there. That way everyone linking origin to origin will be good to go and everyone receiving AutoCAD exports will be seeing a 0,0 point at the intersection of two grid lines.

06/16/2014

I have been teaching AutoCAD update classes a lot lately. I think it is because of Autodesk's push towards Subscription licenses, that many companies have found themselves "current" for the first time in years. Now that you own the latest version of AutoCAD 2015, do you really know the great new tools that have been added in the last 5 years?

I have created a little quiz, for all those users who "know" AutoCAD, Enjoy!

Do you know there is an ALIGN command? It will rotate, move, & scale, all in one command!

Do you know how to convert single line text to multiline text? The command is TXT2MTXT.

Do you know that there are TWO different Spline commands? Do you know the difference between them? Spline Fit and Spline CV (Control Vertices)

Do you know that you can now use the command line to search for blocks in the project?

Do you know that TRIM & EXTEND are actually the same command?

For example, if you are TRIM-ing objects, hold down the SHIFT key to reverse the command, and EXTEND instead, and vice versa.

Do you know that you do not need to pick a cutting edge when using TRIM or EXTEND?

After starting either Trim or Extend, if you simply hit ENTER at the prompt to pick a cutting edge, ALL LINES become the cutting edge!

7. Do you send files to your consultants by dragging and dropping files into your email?

There is a better way! It is called Etransmit, and it will save down to earlier versions, purge the drawing, attach all xrefs and images, and create a transmittal package of files, AUTOMATICALLY!

Do you know that if you double click the mouse wheel, it ZOOM EXTENTS!

Do you know that the JOIN command is super powerful?

It has two tremendous uses. First, it will JOIN coincident lines that you may have split apart. Second, if you have multiple lines on top of each other, JOIN will clean them all up and merge them to become one line

10. Do you know that AutoCAD 2015 has a new TEXT ALIGN command?

It lines up individual pieces of Mtext. (Note: this does not work for Multileaders, as they have had their own MLEADERALIGN command for years)

Let us know how you did on our little quiz, and if we were able to stump you with any of our DO YOU KNOW questions.

03/26/2013

Yes, it’s that time of year again - time to see what sort of goodies we’ve got waiting for us in our latest release of Autodesk software! Let me set something clear from the onset of this blog post, that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list of “what’s new” in the software. We will have plenty of time through this and other venues to review the technical aspects of the new software releases. Instead, the purpose of this post is to keep a broad view of things. As you pour through all of the various software offerings (especially if you have one of the Suites) and look to see what it means to you, here are some thoughts to keep in mind as you work through the evaluation process:

Cloud services are growing, but not at the cost of reduced desktop solutions. The foreseeable future of the Autodesk Solution consists of a blend of desktop solutions (especially Suites) AND cloud services. Autodesk 360 is intended to extend the desktop, not replace it.

There is a stronger push behind interoperability and workflow between individual pieces of software in the Suites. If you have the Building Design Suite, you’ll have better integration between Revit and AutoCAD, between Revit and Inventor… if we have access to all of these tools, why shouldn’t we take better advantage of their capabilities?

Windows 8 support. ‘Nuff said.

IMAGINiT had a webcast a few months ago that was all about “Evaluating the Upgrade” It’s available in our webcast archive and is worth a view. If you haven’t been there before, you’ll need to fill out a quick form to get access, but access is free. http://imaginit.com/knowledge-resources/webcast-archive Look for the one a little less than a quarter of the way down in the list called, “[Building] Evaluating the Upgrade”.

At this point, let’s go ahead and violate the statement I made earlier and mention a couple of features that I think stand out in some of the new releases – and even though this list is only a tiny fraction of everything that was put into the software, take a look at them within the context of the statements above – how do they help bridge the gap between individual pieces of software, how do they utilize both desktop and cloud technology, and perhaps most importantly – how do they matter to you and your firm when evaluating the upgrade process?

01/11/2013

If CFD means anything to you (and it should!) take a moment to pop over to our new CFD Blog, run by IMAGINiT's own CFD team - Ryan Stamm, Jason Pfeiffer, Rob Taylor, and Tommy Mello. Add it to your list of super-awesome-cool blogs to follow!

If you're not sure where and how CFD fits into your business or workflow, give us a call and we can help you get a better understanding of where it might improve your design process and building quality.

07/09/2012

How many of you have already downloaded the Windows 8 Release Preview and made your computer screen look something like this?

Well, over the weekend I decided to spin up a virtual machine and see what would happen if I got the Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview installed with (hopefully) some Autodesk software. I have to say that the installation of Windows 8 went quite smoothly (I just had to avoid some auto-installer features of my VM system) and the installation of Revit 2013 and AutoCAD MEP 2013 along with some supporting applications (Sketchbook Designer, Inventor Fusion, etc) went without a hiccup as well.

I have my VM running with 2 processors / cores and only 2 Gig of memory, so I'm not going to test anything for speed, but from a general usability standpoint, it all looks positive so far. It takes a little to get used to the new Start screen, but that part went reasonably quick for me after a short perusal of the Microsoft Windows 8 FAQ.

I'll keep poking around at this from time to time, but if you have anything in particular that you'd like me to review, leave a comment and we'll see what we can do to help out!

06/21/2012

Our IT staff passed this one along - hopefully it has no affect on you and your business (it seems to have been mostly infecting Latin America):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/21/autocad_worm/

As stated in the article,
"The worm, dubbed ACAD/Medre.A, steals files and sends them to email accounts located in China. ESET said it had worked with Chinese ISP Tencent, the Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and Autodesk – the creator of AutoCAD – to stop the harvesting of drawings by blocking email accounts associated with relaying stolen data... ESET has released a free stand-alone cleaner utility to aid in the clean-up of infected systems.

AutoCAD malware strains are rare but not unprecedented. For example an AutoCAD virus surfaced in 2009.

More details on the AutoCAD worm attack can be found in a blog post by Eset"

Here is that more detailed blog post:
http://blog.eset.com/2012/06/21/acadmedre-10000s-of-autocad-files-leaked-in-suspected-industrial-espionage

05/10/2012

Did you get a chance to attend our Know It. All. event last week? If you were there, were you able to attend all of the sessions you wanted? If you signed up and were not able to attend, did you know that you are still able to view all of the sessions on demand now? Click here to head over to the virtual event site, fill in your login and password, and have at it!

Did you know that even if you did not sign up for the event, you can still view all of the session recordings on demand?

Registration is still required, but once you're in, everything is there for you! The site will only be up for a little under 90 days (technically, 90 days after the event occurred last week), so don't dawdle.

04/13/2012

Can all of you stop downloading so I can get my stuff? :) When I go to my Autodesk Subscription site to download the new Building Design Suite software, I see the following notice:

Back in reality now, it's nice to see that there are a lot of people eager to get to their new 2013 software from Autodesk. Come on around to meet with us virtually at our Know It.All. event on May 2nd for some good information on these new products!

03/27/2012

Well, 2013 products are here and it's time for the seemingly annual parade of blog posts, webcasts, video snippets, and information overload! As always, there is too much to encapsulate in a single blog post, so we find ourselves in a position where there is a need to set priorities among all of the 'what's new' features in all of the different products. As opposed to information that you can find on our Manufacturing and Infrastructure blogs, here we are going to be focusing on things that apply most directly to building design.

More specifically, you are going to be subjected to the things that I think are most relevant to building design. Sorry, but that's how it goes since I'm the one doing the typing. :)

You can expect future posts to contain deeper and more detailed information, but the intent here is to get you a quick snapshot of some of the essential changes in a few key products.Let's start with a quick look at my 3 most important things about AutoCAD 2013.

First off, 2013 means a new file format for AutoCAD. If you want to work with someone using AutoCAD 2012 or earlier, you will need to do a SAVEAS to the previous file format.

Second, Autodesk Exchange Apps. It's like an app store for AutoCAD... and other Autodesk software as well. Think of it this way... Have you ever considered just how many addin applications exist for Autocad? Do a Google search on 'AutoCAD plugin' and you get over ten million results. Not all of them are about actual applications or things you can download, but am I (or you) really going to search though all of that? Given any choice on the matter, I'm not! Autodesk Exchange Apps is there to help us better understand what additional software is out there that could help out in your professional (Autodesk related) life.

OK...the third thing... Holding myself to a top three is actually pretty difficult. I could bring up a more robust 3D design and documentation environment, but I don't see it being as large of an impact on building design as enhanced point cloud features...

But I don't see that as being as important as enhancements to other commands and features we use daily like the command line, array command, multifunction grips, and constraints. Do you see what's did there? I totally cheated. Way more than three things.

What about Revit?

Well, let's try to keep it even and give a Top Three list for Revit too:

For the first item on my list, I'm going to refer to something that is not really a new feature - if you have the Building Design Suite Premium or Ultimate, Revit comes as a single application with all of the features of all 3 Revit disciplines wrapped into a single interface. Not 3 separate programs and installations any more. You have the ability to turn different aspects of the interface on and off if you really don't want to be bothered with any of the analytical analysis ribbon panels for disciplines other than your own, but personally, I like having it all there. I'm also grateful that Autodesk did not come out and call this combined version 'Revit Building'. That would inevitably cause way too much confusion for our support center. "ok, are you using the old Revit Building product, or the new one?" no fun at all.

Number two on my list is improved stairs and railings. We can now directly manipulate run, landing, and support components, along with additional capabilities for stairs to overlap. We also have some improvements to stair annotation and representation. Railings have improved transitions and improvements to extensions to top rails and handrails. Stairs haven't been touched in quite some time now, so this is a welcome set of improvements.

Third for me are enhancements to view templates. It's not as graphically jolting as something like the new interactive ray trace view or as edgy as improved physical properties for building performance analysis, but when the rubber hits the road, the quality and consistency of our model and documents is largely controlled by viewing graphics and view templates. Anything that an help us here is a welcome improvement in my book. See - I did it again... more than three.

In the end, these are just a few of the multitude of new or enhanced features and capabilities in Autodesk 2013 software. I know there isn't a heckofa lot of detail in this post, but those details will follow later to keep things digestible in smaller chunks. Hopefully the purpose of this initial posting (to give you a broad overview of what at least one person things is noteworthy) was clear from the onset and fulfilled it's purpose.

In the mean time, leave a comment below if there is anything you'd like to get specifically reviewed or if some other favorite feature of yours was left out.

12/29/2011

How many of you have run into this and found a dead end? You are using a 64-bit workstation (Windows 7, probably) with 64-bit version of some Autodesk software (Revit or Navisworks, perhaps) and want to try out this supposedly nifty neato cool wow export/link to Microsoft Access. You might have run into a problem in that as you work through any export/link wizard, you don't see any way to export to MS Access.

Your Microsoft Office is 32-bit and has 32-bit drivers available (although tricky to find), but as mentioned above, these won’t work with 64-bit applications.

If you have 32-bit MS Office, it will not let you install a 64-bit ODBC driver.

Translation: you’re in a sticky situation. But fortunately, there is a resolution to this one.

It all boils down to just a few steps, but you’ll need to make sure that you have all of the resources you’ll need prior to starting the process. For starters, you’ll need to download the 64-bit MS Access ODBC drivers from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=13255

Be sure to grab the 64-bit (AccessDatabaseEngine_x64.exe) version! :)

You will also need to have your MS Office media available – or have some way available for you to reinstall MS Office. Once you have these pieces in place, you have a 3 or 4 step process in front of you:

Uninstall Microsoft Office and any other versions of 32-bit Office products that are installed.

Uninstall "Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable 32-bit" if you installed it at some point in the past.

Install the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable 64-bit that you downloaded from the link above. Because all of your 32-bit office products were uninstalled, you should not receive any error messages during the install of the 64-bit drivers.

Reinstall Microsoft Office (and any other 32-bit Office products).

After this, you should be able to export from your 64-bit Autodesk application to MS Access and get rolling with figuring out what you might want to do with SQL strings or whatever destination your journey into databases takes you!